
Henry 
Wadsw( 
Jong fellow 



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IN THE HARBOR 



ULTIMA THULE.-PART II. 



BY 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



" Ultima Thule .' Utmost Isle ! 
Here in thy harbors for a while 
We lower our sails ; a while we rest 
From the unending, endless quest " 




BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 

(£*je 0ifcer$&e $n#& Camfcri&oe 

1882 



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Copyright, 1882, 
Bt ERNEST LONGFELLOW, ADMINISTRATOR. 



All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



CONTENTS. 



POEMS. 

PAGE 

Becalmed 9 

Hermes Trismegistus 11 

The Poet's Calendar 16 

Mad River, in the White Mountains 24 

AUF WlEDERSEHEN 28 

The Children's Crusade 31 

The City and the Sea 39 

Sundown 40 

President Garfield 41 

Decoration Day 42 

Chimes 44 

Four by the Clock 45 

The Four Lakes of Madison 46 

Moonlight 48 

To the Avon 51 

Elegiac Verse 53 

A Fragment ..... 59 

The Bells of San Blas 60 



iv CONTENTS. 

TRANSLATIONS. 

PAGE 

Prelude 67 

From the French 69 

The Wine of Jurancon 71 

At La Chaudeau 73 

A Quiet Life 75 

PERSONAL POEMS. 

Loss and Gain 79 

Autumn Within 80 

Victor and Vanquished 81 

Memories 82 

My Books 83 

L'ENVOI. 

Possibilities 87 



NOTE. 

— •— 

This volume contains all of Mr. Longfellow's 
unprinted poems which will be given to the 
public, with the exception of two sonnets re- 
served for his Biography, and " Michael An- 
gelo," a dramatic poem, which will be published 
later. 

"The Children's Crusade" was left unfin- 
ished. It is founded upon an event which oc- 
curred in the year 1212. An army of twenty 
thousand children, mostly boys, under the lead 
of a boy of ten years, named Nicolas, set out 
from Cologne for the Holy Land. When they 
reached Genoa only seven thousand remained. 



vi NOTE. 

There, as the sea did not divide to allow them 
to march dry-shod to the East, they broke up. 
Some got as far as Rome ; two ship-loads sailed 
from Pisa, and were not heard of again ; the 
rest straggled back to Germany. 



POEMS. 



BECALMED. 

Becalmed upon the sea of Thought, 
Still unattained the land it sought, 
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails, 
Lies waiting the auspicious gales. 

On either side, behind, before, 
The ocean stretches like a floor, — 
A level floor of amethyst, 
Crowned by a golden dome of mist. 

Blow, breath of inspiration, blow! 
Shake and uplift this golden glow! 
And fill the canyas of the mind 
With wafts of thy celestial wind. 



10 IN TEE HARBOR. 

Blow, breath of song! until I feel 
The straining sail, the lifting keel, 
The life of the awakening sea, 
Its motion and its mystery ! 



HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 

As Seleucus narrates, Hermes described the principles that rank 
as wholes in two myriads of books ; or, as we are informed by 
Manetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriads 
six thousand five hundred and twenty-five volumes. . . . 

. . . Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to 
this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Her- 
mes. — Iamblicus. 

Still through Egypt's desert places 

Flows the lordly Nile, 
From its banks the great stone faoes 

Gaze with patient smile. 
Still the pyramids imperious 

Pierce the cloudless skies, 
And the Sphinx stares with mysterious, 

Solemn, stony eyes. 

But where are the old Egyptian 
Demi-gods and kings? 



12 IN THE HARBOR. 

Nothing left but an inscription 
Graven on stones and rings. 

Where are Helius and Hephoestus, 
Gods of eldest eld? 

"Where is Hermes Trismegistus, 
Who their secrets held? 

Where are now the many hundred 

Thousand books he wrote? 
By the Thaumaturgists plundered, 

Lost in lands remote; 
In oblivion sunk forever, 

As when o'er the land 
Blows a storm-wind, in the river 

Sinks the scattered sand. 

Something unsubstantial, ghostly, 
Seems this Theurgist, 

In deep meditation mostly 
Wrapped, as in a mist. 



HERMES TR1SMEGISTUS. 13 

Vague, phantasmal, and unreal 

To our thought he seems, 
Walking in a world ideal, 

In a land of dreams. 

Was he one, or many, merging 

Name and fame in one, 
Like a stream, to which, converging, 

Many streamlets run? 
Till, with gathered power proceeding, 

Ampler sweep it takes, 
Downward the sweet waters leading 

From unnumbered lakes. 

By the Nile I see him wandering, 

Pausing now and then, 
On the mystic union pondering 

Between gods and men ; 
Half believing, wholly feeling, 

With supreme delight, 



14 IN THE HARBOR. 

How the gods, themselves concealing, 
Lift men to their height. 

Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated, 

In the thoroughfare 
Breathing, as if consecrated, 

A diviner air; 
And amid discordant noises, 

In the jostling throng, 
Hearing far, celestial voices 

Of Olympian song. 

Who shall call his dreams fallacious? 

Who has searched or sought 
All the unexplored and spacious 

Universe of thought? 
Who, in his own skill confiding, 

Shall with rule and line 
Mark the border-land dividing 

Human and divine? 



HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 15 

Trismegistus ! three times greatest! 

How thy name sublime 
Has descended to this latest 

Progeny of time! 
Happy they whose written pages 

Perish with their lives, 
If amid the crumbling ages 

Still their name survives ! 

Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately 

Found I in the vast, 
Weed-encumbered, sombre, stately, 

Grave-yard of the Past; 
And a presence moved before me 

On that gloomy shore, 
As a waft of wind, that o'er me 

Breathed, and was no more. 



THE POET'S CALENDAR. 

JANUARY. 

I. 

Janus am I ; oldest of potentates ; 

Forward I look, and backward, and below 
I count, as god of avenues and gates, 

The years that through my portals come 
and go. 

ii. 
I block the roads, and drift the fields with 
snow; 
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; 
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, 
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of 
men. 



THE POETS CALENDAR. 17 

FEBRUARY. 

I am lustration ; and the sea is mine ! 

I wash the sands and headlands with my 
tide ; 
My brow is crowned with branches of the 
pine; 

Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide. 
By me all things unclean are purified, 

By me the souls of men washed white again ; 
E'en the unlovely tombs of those who died 

Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain. 



MARCH. 

I Martius am ! Once first, and now the 
third ! 

To lead the Year was my appointed place ; 
A mortal dispossessed me by a word, 

And set there Janus with the double face. 



18 IN THE HARBOR. 

Hence I make war on all the human race ; 

I shake the cities with my hurricanes ; 
I flood the rivers and their banks efface, 

And drown the farms and hamlets with my 
rains. 

APRIL. 

I open wide the portals of the Spring 

To welcome the procession of the flowers, 
With their gay banners, and the birds that 
sing 
Their song of songs from their aerial tow- 
ers. 
I soften with my sunshine and my showers 
The heart of earth ; with thoughts of love 
I glide 
Into the hearts of men ; and with the hours 
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride. 



THE POETS CALENDAR. 19 

MAY. 

Hark ! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim 

My coming, and the swarming of the bees. 
These are my heralds, and behold ! my name 

Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn- 
trees. 
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas ; 

I waft o'er all the land from far away 
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides, 

My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May. 



JUNE. 

Mine is the Month of Roses ; yes, and mine 

The Month of Marriages ! All pleasant 

sights 

And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming 

vine, 

The foliage of the valleys and the heights. 



20 IN THE HARBOR. 

Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights ; 

The mower's scythe makes music to my ear ; 
I am the mother of all dear delights ; 

I am the fairest daughter of the year. 



JULY. 

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe 

The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land ; 
My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe, 

And bent before me the pale harvests stand. 
The lakes and rivers shrink at my command, 

And there is thirst and fever in the air ; 
The sky is changed to brass, the earth to 
sand ; 

I am the Emperor whose name I bear. 



THE POETS CALENDAR. 21 

AUGUST. 

The Emperor Octavian, called the August, 

I being his favorite, bestowed his name 
Upon me, and I hold it still in trust, 

In memory of him and of his fame. 
I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame 

Burns less intensely than the Lion's rage ; 
Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim 

The golden Harvests as my heritage. 



SEPTEMBER. 

I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise 

The night and day ; and when unto my lips 
I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise 
Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of 
ships ; 
The tree-tops lash the air with sounding 
whips ; 
2 



22 IN THE HARBOR. 

Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their 

flight; 
The hedges are all red with haws and hips, 
The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the 

night. 

OCTOBER. 

My ornaments are fruits ; my garments leaves, 

Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed ; 
I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves, 

O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside. 
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride, 

The dreamy air is full, and overflows 
With tender memories of the summer-tide, 

And mingled voices of the doves and crows 



NOVEMBER. 

The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I, 

Born of Ixion's and the clo'ud's embrace ; 



THE POET'S CALENDAR. 23 

With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly, 
A steed Thessalian with a human face. 

Sharp winds the arrows are with which I 
chase 
The leaves, half dead already with affright ; 

I shroud myself in gloom ; and to the race 
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight. 



DECEMBER. 

Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair, 

I come, the last of all. This crown of mine 
Is of the holly ; in my hand I bear 

The thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of 
pine. 
I celebrate the birth of the Divine, 

And the return of the Saturnian reign ; — 
My songs are carols sung at every shrine, 

Proclaiming " Peace on earth, good will to 



MAD RIVER, 

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

TRAVELLER. 

Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, 

Mad River, O Mad River? 
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour 
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er 
This rocky shelf forever? 

What secret trouble stirs thy breast? 

Why all this fret and flurry? 
Dost thou not know that what is best 
In this too restless world is rest 

From over- work and worry? 



MAD RIVER. 25 

THE RIVER. 

What wouldst thou in these mountains seek, 

O stranger from the city? 
Is it perhaps some foolish freak 
Of thine, to put the words I speak 

Into a plaintive ditty? 

TRAVELLER. 

Yes; I would learn of thee thy song, 
With all its flowing numbers, 

And in a voice as fresh and strong 

As thine is, sing it all day long, 

And hear it in my slumbers. 

THE RIVER. 

A brooklet nameless and unknown 

Was I at first, resembling 
A little child, that all alone 
Comes venturing down the stairs of stone, 

Irresolute and trembling. 



26 IN THE HARBOR. 

Later, by wayward fancies led, 

For the wide world I panted; 
Out of the forest dark and dread 
Across the open fields I fled, 

Like one pursued and haunted. 

I tossed my arms, I sang aloud, 

My voice exultant blending 
With thunder from the passing cloud, 
The wind, the forest bent and bowed, 
The rush of rain descending. 

I heard the distant ocean call, 

Imploring and entreating; 
Drawn onward, o'er this rocky wall 
I plunged, and the loud Waterfall 

Made answer to the greeting. 

And now, beset with many ills, 
A toilsome life I follow; 



MAD RIVER. 27 

Compelled to carry from the hills 

These logs to the impatient mills 

Below there in the hollow. 

Yet something ever cheers and charms 
The rudeness of my labors; 

Daily I water with these arms 

The cattle of a hundred farms, 

And have the birds for neighbors. 

Men call me Mad, and well they may, 
When, full of rage and trouble, 
I burst my banks of sand and clay, 
And sweep their wooden bridge away, 
Like withered reeds or stubble. 

Now go and write thy little rhyme, 
As of thine own creating. 

Thou seest the day is past its prime ; 

I can no longer waste my time ; 

The mills are tired of waiting. 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN. 

IN MEMORY OF J. T. F. 

Until we meet again ! That is the mean- 
ing 
Of the familiar words, that men repeat 

At parting in the street. 
Ah yes, till then ! but when death interven- 
ing 
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain 
We frait for the Again ! 

The friends who leave us do not feel the 

sorrow 
Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay 
Lamenting day by day, 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN. 29 

And knowing, when we wake upon the mor- 
row, 
We shall not find in its accustomed place 
The one beloved face. 

It were a double grief, if the departed, 
Being released from earth, should still retain 

A sense of earthly pain ; 
It were a double grief, if the true-hearted, 
Who loved us here, should on the farther 
shore 

Remember us no more. 

Believing, in the midst of our afflictions, 
That death is a beginning, not an end, 

We cry to them, and send 
Farewells, that better might be called pre- 
dictions, 
Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown 

Into the vast "Unknown. 



30 IN THE HARBOR. 



Faith overleaps the confines of our reason, 
And if by faith, as in old times was said, 

Women received their dead 
Raised up to life, then only for a season 
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain 

Until we meet again ! 



■ 

i 



THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. 

[a fragment.] 

I. 

What is this I read in history, 
Full of marvel, full of mystery, 
Difficult to understand ? 
Is it fiction, is it truth? 
Children in the flower of youth, 
Heart in heart, and hand in hand, 
Ignorant of what helps or harms, 
Without armor, without arms, 
Journeying to the Holy Land ! 

Who shall answer or divine ? 
Never since the world was made 



32 IN THE HARBOR. 

Such a wonderful crusade 
Started forth for Palestine. 
Never while the world shall last 
Will it reproduce the past ; 
Never will it see again 
Such an army, such a band, 
Over mountain, over main, 
Journeying to the Holy Land. 

Like a shower of blossoms blown 
From the parent trees were they; 
Like a flock of birds that fly 
Through the unfrequented sky, 
Holding nothing as their own, 
Passed they into lands unknown, 
Passed to suffer and to die. 

O the simple, child-like trust ! 
O the faith that could believe 
What the harnessed, iron-mailed 
Knights of Christendom had failed, 



THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. 33 

By their prowess, to achieve, 

They, the children, could and must ! 

Little thought the Hermit, preaching 

Holy Wars to knight and baron, 

That the words dropped in his teaching, 

His entreaty, his beseeching, 

Would by children's hands be gleaned, 

And the staff on which he leaned 

Blossom like the rod of Aaron. 

As a summer wind upheaves 

The innumerable leaves 

In the bosom of a wood, — 

Not as separate leaves, but massed 

All together by the blast, — 

So for evil or for good 

His resistless breath upheaved 

All at once the many-leaved, 

Many-thoughted multitude. 

3 



34 IN THE HARBOR. 

In the tumult of the air 
Rock the boughs with all the nests 
Cradled on their tossing crests ; 
By the fervor of his prayer 
Troubled hearts were everywhere 
Rocked and tossed in human breasts. 

For a century, at least, 
His prophetic voice had ceased ; 
But the air was heated still 
By his lurid words and will, 
As from fires in far-off woods, 
In the autumn of the year, 
An unwonted fever broods 
In the sultry atmosphere. 

ii. 
In Cologne the bells were ringing, 
In Cologne the nuns were singing 
Hymns and canticles divine ; 



THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. 35 

Loud the monks sang in their stalls, 
And the thronging streets were loud 
With the voices of the crowd ; — 
Underneath the city walls 
Silent flowed the river Rhine. 

From the gates, that summer day, 
Clad in robes of hodden gray, 
With the red cross on the breast, 
Azure-eyed and golden-haired, 
Forth the young Crusaders fared; 
While above the band devoted 
Consecrated banners floated, 
Fluttered many a flag and streamer, 
And the cross o'er all the rest ! 
Singing lowly, meekly, slowly, 
" Give us, give us back the holy 
Sepulchre of the Redeemer ! " 
On the vast procession pressed, 
Youths and maidens. . . . 



36 IN THE HARBOR. 

III. 
Ah ! what master hand shall paint 
How they journeyed on their way, 
How the days grew long and dreary, 
How their little feet grew weary, 
How their little hearts grew faint ! 

Ever swifter day by day 

Flowed the homeward river ; ever 

More and more its whitening current 

Broke and scattered into spray, 

Till the calmly-flowing river 

Changed into a mountain torrent, 

Rushing from its glacier green 

Down through chasm and black ravine. 

Like a phoenix in its nest, 

Burned the red sun in the West, 

Sinking in an ashen cloud ; 

In the East, above the crest 



THE CHILDREN? S CRUSADE. 37 

Of the sea-like mountain chain, 
Like a phoenix from its shroud, 
Came the red sun back again. 

Now around them, white with snow, 
Closed the mountain peaks. Below, 
Headlong from the precipice 
Down into the dark abyss, 
Plunged the cataract, white with foam ; 
And it said, or seemed to say : 
44 Oh return, while yet you niay, 
Foolish children, to your home, 
There the Holy City is ! " 

But the dauntless leader said : 
44 Faint not, though your bleeding feet 
O'er these slippery paths of sleet 
Move but painfully and slowly ; 
Ofcher feet than yours have bled; 
Other tears than yours been shed. 



38 IN THE HARBOR. 

Courage ! lose not heart or hope ; 
On the mountains' southern slope 
Lies Jerusalem the Holy ! " 
As a white rose in its pride, 
By the wind in summer-tide 
Tossed and loosened from the branch, 
Showers its petals o'er the ground, 
From the distant mountain's side, 
Scattering all its snows around, 
With mysterious, muffled sound, 
Loosened, fell the avalanche. 
Voices, echoes far and near, 
Roar of winds and waters blending, 
Mists uprising, clouds impending, 
Filled them with a sense of fear, 
Formless, nameless, never ending. 



THE CITY AND THE SEA. 

The panting City cried to the Sea, 

"I am faint with heat, — breathe on me ! " 

And the Sea said, " Lo, I breathe ! but my breath 
To some will be life, to others death ! " 

As to Prometheus, bringing ease 
In pain, come the Oceanides, 

So to the City, hot with the flame 

Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came. 

It came from the heaving breast of the deep, 
Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep. 

Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be; 
O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea? 



SUNDOWN. 

The summer sun is sinking low ; 
Only the tree-tops redden and glow: 
Only the weathercock on the spire 
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire ; 
All is in shadow below. 

O beautiful, awful summer day, 
What hast thou given, what taken away? 
Life and death, and love and hate, 
Homes made happy or desolate, 
Hearts made sad or gay! 

On the road of life one mile-stone more ! 
In the book of life one leaf turned o'er ! 
Like a red seal is the setting sun 
On the good arid the evil men have done, — 
Naught can to-day restore ! 

July 24, 1879. 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 

"E VENNI DAL MAKTIRIO A QUESTA PACE." 

These words the poet heard in Paradise, 
Uttered by one who, bravely dying here, 
In the true faith was living in that sphere 
Where the celestial cross of sacrifice 

Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies ; 
And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear, 
The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear, 
Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes. 

Ah me ! how dark the discipline of pain, 
Were not the suffering followed by the 

sense 
Of infinite rest and infinite release ! 

This is our consolation ; and again 

A great soul cries to us in our suspense, 
" I came from martyrdom unto this peace ! " 






DECORATION DAY. 

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest 

On this Field of the Grounded Arms, 

Where foes no more molest, 
Nor sentry's shot alarms! 



Ye have slept on the ground before, 
And started to your feet 

At the cannon's sudden roar, 
Or the drum's redoubling beat. 

But in this camp of Death 

No sound your slumber breaks ; 

Here is no fevered breath, 

No wound that bleeds and aches. 



DECORATION DAY. 43 

All is repose and peace, 

Untrampled lies the sod ; 
The shouts of battle cease, 

It is the Truce of God ! 

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep ! 

The thoughts of men shall be 
As sentinels to keep 

Your rest from danger free. 

Your silent tents of green 

We deck with fragrant flowers; 

Yours has the suffering been, 
The memory shall be ours. 

February, 3, 1882. 



CHIMES. 

Sweet chimes ! that in the loneliness of night 
Salute the passing hour, and in the dark 
And silent chambers of the household mark 
The movements of the myriad orbs of light ! 

Through my closed eyelids, by the inner 
sight, 
I see the constellations in the arc 
Of their great circles moving on, and hark ! 
I almost hear them singing in their flight. 

Better than sleep it is to lie awake 
O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome 
Of the immeasurable sky ; to feel 

The slumbering world sink under us, and 
make 
Hardly an eddy, — a mere rush of foam 
On the great sea beneath a sinking keel. 

August 28, 1879. 



FOUR BY THE CLOCK. 

Foue by the clock! and yet not day; 
But the great world rolls and wheels away, 
With its cities on land, and its ships at sea,- 
Into the dawn that is to be ! 

Only the lamp in the anchored bark 
Sends its glimmer across the dark, 
And the heavy breathing of the sea 
Is the only sound that comes to me. 

Nahaxt, September 8, 1880, 
four o'clock in the morning. 



THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISON. 

Four limpid lakes, — four Naiades 
Or sylvan deities are these, 

In flowing robes of azure dressed; 
Four lovely handmaids, that uphold 
Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold, 

To the fair city in the West. 

By day the coursers of the sun 
Drink of these waters as they run 

Their swift diurnal round on high; 
By night the constellations glow 
Far down the hollow deeps below, 

And glimmer in another sky. 



THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISON. 47 

Fair lakes, serene and full of light, 
Fair town, arrayed in robes of white, 

How visionary ye appear ! 
All like a floating landscape seems 
In cloud-land or the land of dreams, 

Bathed in a golden atmosphere! 



MOONLIGHT. 

As a pale phantom with a lamp 
Ascends some ruin's haunted stair, 

So glides the moon along the damp 
Mysterious chambers of the air. 

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed, 
As if this phantom, full of pain, 

Were by the crumbling walls concealed, 
And at the windows seen again. 

Until at last, serene and proud 
In all the splendor of her light, 

She walks the terraces of cloud, 
Supreme as Empress of the Night. 



MOONLIGHT. 49 

I look, but recognize no more 

Objects familiar to my view ; 
The very pathway to my door 

Is an enchanted avenue. 

All things are changed. One mass of shade, 
The elm-trees drop their curtains down ; 

By palace, park, and colonnade 
I walk as in a foreign town. 

The very ground beneath my feet 

Is clothed with a diviner air ; 
White marble paves the silent street 

And glimmers in the empty square. 

Illusion ! Underneath there lies 

The common life of every day ; 
Only the spirit glorifies 

With its own tints the sober gray. 



50 IN TEE HARBOR. 

In vain we look, in vain uplift 

Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind; 

We see but what we have the gift 
Of seeing; what we bring we find. 

December 20, 1878. 



TO THE AVON. 

Flow on, sweet river! like his verse 
Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse; 
Nor wait beside the churchyard wall 
For him who cannot hear thy call. 

Thy playmate once; I see him now 
A boy with sunshine on his brow, 
And hear in Stratford's quiet street 
The patter of his little feet. 

I see him by thy shallow edge 
Wading knee-deep amid the sedge; 
And lost in thought, as if thy stream 
Were the swift river of a dream. 



52 IN THE HARBOR. 

He wonders whitherward it flows; 
And fain would follow where it goes, 
To the wide world, that shall erelong 
Be filled with his melodious song. 

Flow on, fair stream! That dream is o'er; 
He stands upon another shore ; 
A vaster river near him flows, 
And still he follows where it goes. 






ELEGIAC VERSE. 

i. 
Pekadvejstuhe of old, some bard in Ionian 
Islands, 

Walking alone by the sea, bearing the wash 
of the waves, 
Learned the secret from them of the beautiful 
verse elegiac, 
Breathing into his song motion and sound 
of the sea. 

For as a wave of the sea, upheaving in long 
undulations, 
Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, 
and retreats, 



54 IN THE HARBOR. 

So the Hexameter, rising and sinking, with 
cadence sonorous, 
Falls ; and in refluent rhythm back the Pen- 
tameter flows. 1 

ii. 

Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the 
heart of the poet 
Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in 
autumn and spring. 

m. 
Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the 
rhymes of our poet ; 
Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! 
are the hands. 

l Compare Schiller. 

Im Hexameter steigt des Springquells fliissige Saule ; 
Im Pentameter drauf fallt sie melodiscb. herab. 

See also Coleridge's translation. 



ELEGIAC VERSE. 55 

r 

IV. 

Let us be grateful to writers for what is left 
in the inkstand; 
When to leave off is an art only attained 
by the few. 

Y. 

I How can the Three be One ? you ask me ; I 
answer by asking, 
Hail and snow and rain, are they not three, 

and yet one ? 

VI. 

By the mirage uplifted the land floats vague 
in the ether, 
Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the 
motionless air ; 
So by the art of the poet our common life 
is uplifted, 
So, transfigured, the world floats in a lumi- 
nous haze. 



56 IN THE HARBOR. 

VII. 

Like a French poem is Life ; being only per- 
fect in structure 
When with the masculine rhymes mingled 
the feminine are. 

VIII. 
Down from the mountain descends the brook- 
let, rejoicing in freedom ; 
Little it dreams of the mill hid in the val- 
ley below ; 
Glad with the joy of existence, the child goes 
singing and laughing, 
Little dreaming what toils lie in the future 
concealed. 

As the ink from our pen, so flow our thoughts 
and our feelings 
When we begin to write, however sluggish 
before. 



ELEGIAC VERSE. 57 

X. 

Like the Kingdom of Heaven, the Fountain 
of Youth is within us ; 
If we seek it elsewhere, old shall we grow 
in the search. 



XI. 

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a 
little above it ; 
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction 
of earth. 



xn. 

Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense 
in their language : 
While we are speaking the word, it is al- 
ready the Past. 



C- 



58 IN TEE HARBOR. 

xm. 
In the twilight of age all things seem strange 
and phantasmal, 
As between daylight and dark ghost-like 
the landscape appears. 

XIV. 

Great is the art of beginning, but greater the 

art is of ending; 

Many a poem is marred by a superfluous 

verse. 

1881. 



'' 









A FRAGMENT. 

Awake ! arise ! the hour is late ! 

Angels are knocking at thy door ! 
They are in haste and cannot wait, 

And once departed come no more. 

Awake! arise! the athlete's arm 

Loses its strength by too much rest; 

The fallow land, the untilled farm 
Produces only weeds at best. 



THE BELLS OF SAN BLAS. 1 

What say the Bells of San Bias 
To the ships that southward pass 

From the harbor of Mazatlan? 
To them it is nothing more 
Than the sound of surf on the shore, — 

Nothing more to master or man. 

But to me, a dreamer of dreams, 
To whom what is and what seems 

Are often one and the same, — 
The Bells of San Bias to me 
Have a strange, wild melody, 

And are something more than a name. 

1 The last poem written by Mr. Longfellow. 



THE BELLS OF SAN BLAS. 61 

For bells are the voice of the church ; 
They have tones that touch and search 

The hearts of young and old; 
One sound to all, yet each 
Lends a meaning -to their speech, 

And the meaning is manifold. 

They are a voice of the Past, 
Of an age that is fading fast, 

Of a power austere and grand; 
When the flag of Spain unfurled 
Its folds o'er this western world, 

And the Priest was lord of the land. 

The chapel that once looked down 
On the little seaport town 

Has crumbled into the dust; 
And on oaken beams below 
The bells swing to and fro, 

And are green with mould and rust. 



62 IN THE HARBOR. 

"Is, then, the old faith dead," 
They say, "and in its stead 

Is some new faith proclaimed, M 

That we are forced to remain 
Naked to sun and rain, 

Unsheltered and ashamed? 

"Once in our tower aloof 
We rang over wall and roof 

Our warnings and our complaints; 
And round about us there 
The white doves filled the air, 

Like the white souls of the saints. 

" The saints ! Ah, have they grown 
Forgetful of their own ? 

Are they asleep, or dead, 
That open to the sky 
Their ruined Missions lie, 
No longer tenanted? 



THE BELLS OF SAN BLAS. , 63 

" Oh, bring us back once more 
The vanished days of yore, 

When the world with faith was filled; 
Bring back the fervid zeal, 
The hearts of fire and steel, 

The hands that believe and build. 

" Then from our tower again 
We will send over land and main 

Our voices of command, 
Like exiled kings who return 
To their thrones, and the people learn 

That the Priest is lord of the land!" 

O Bells of San Bias, in vain 
Ye call back the Past again ! 

The Past is deaf to your prayer : 
Out of the shadows of night 
The world rolls into light ; 

It is daybreak everywhere. 

March 15, 1882. 



TBANSLATIONS. 



1 
V 






; 



PRELUDE. 

As treasures that men seek, 
Deep-buried in sea-sands, 

Vanish if they but speak, 
And elude their eager hands. 

So ye escape and slip, 
O songs, and fade away, 

When the word is on my lip 
To interpret what ye say. 

Were it not better, then, 
To let the treasures rest 

Hid from the eyes of men, 
Locked in their iron chest ? 



68 IN THE HARBOR. 

I have but marked the place, 
But half the secret told, 

That, following this slight trace, 
Others may find the gold. 









FROM THE FRENCH. 

Will ever the dear days come back again, 
Those days of June, when lilacs were in 

bloom, 
And bluebirds sang their sonnets in the 

gloom 
Of leaves that roofed them in from sun or 
rain? 
I know not ; but a presence will remain 
Forever and forever in this room, 
Formless, diffused in air, like a perfume, — 
A phantom of the heart, and not the brain. 
Delicious days ! when every spoken word 
Was like a foot-fall nearer ajid more near, 
And a mysterious knocking at the gate 



70 



IN TEE HARBOR. 



Of the heart's secret places, and we heard 
In the sweet tumult of delight and fear 
A voice that whispered, " Open, I cannot 
wait ! " 



THE WINE OF JURANCON. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES CORAN. 

Little sweet wine of Jurangon, 
You are dear to my memory still ! 

With mine host and his merry song, 
Under the rose-tree I drank my fill. 

Twenty years after, passing that way, 
Under the trellis I found again 

Mine host, still sitting there an frais, 
And singing still the same refrain. 

The Jurancon, so fresh and bold, 
Treats me as one it used to know; 

Souvenirs of the days of old 
Already from the bottle flow. 



72 



IN THE HARBOR 



With glass in hand our glances met ; 

We pledge, we drink. How sour it is ! 
Never Argenteuil piquette 

Was to my palate sour as this ! 

And yet the vintage was good, in sooth ; 

The self -same juice, the self -same cask ! 
It was you, O gayety of my youth, 

That failed in the autumnal flask! 









AT LA CHAUDEAU. 

PROM THE FRENCH OF XAVIER MARMIER. 

At La Chaudeau, — ' t is long since then 
I was young, — my years twice ten ; 
All things smiled on the happy boy, 
Dreams of love and songs of joy, 
Azure of heaven and wave below, 
At La Chaudeau. 

To La Chaudeau I come back old : 
My head is gray, my blood is cold; 
Seeking along the meadow ooze, 
Seeking beside the river Seymouse, 
The days of my spring-time of long ago 
At La Chaudeau. 



74 IN THE HARBOR. 

At La Chaudeau nor heart nor brain 
Ever grows old with grief and pain ; 
A sweet remembrance keeps off age; 
A tender friendship doth still assuage 
The burden of sorrow that one may know 
At La Chaudeau. 

At La Chaudeau, had fate decreed 
To limit the wandering life I lead, 
Peradventure I still, forsooth, 
Should have preserved my fresh green youth, 
Under the shadows the hill-tops throw 
At La Chaudeau. 

At La Chaudeau, live on, my friends, 
Happy to be where God intends ; 
And sometimes, by the evening fire, 
Think of him whose sole desire 
Is again to sit in the old chateau 
At La Chaudeau. 









A QUIET LIFE. 



FROM THE FRENCH. 



Let him who will, by force or fraud innate, 
Of courtly grandeurs gain the slippery 

height ; 
I, leaving not the home of my delight, 
Far from the world and noise will medi- 
tate. 
Then, without pomps or perils of the great, 
I shall behold the day succeed the night; 
Behold the alternate seasons take their 

flight, 
And in serene repose old age await. 
And so, whenever Death shall come to close 
The happy moments that my days compose, 
I, full of years, shall die, obscure, alone ! 



76 IN THE HARBOR. 

How wretched is the man, with honors 
crowned, 

Who, having not the one thing needful 
found, 

Dies, known to all, but to himself un- 
known. 

September 11, 1879. 



PEBSONAL POEMS. 



LOSS AND GAIN. 

When I compare 
What I have lost with what I have gained, 
What I have missed with what attained, 
Little room do I find for pride. 

I am aware 
How many days have been idly spent ; 
How like an arrow the good intent 
Has fallen short or been turned aside. 

But who shall dare 
To measure loss and gain in this wise? * 
Defeat may be victory in disguise ; 

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. 



AUTUMN WITHIN. 

It is autumn ; not without, 
But within me is the cold. 

Youth and spring are all about ; 
It is I that have grown old. 

Birds are darting through the air, 
Singing, building without rest ; 

Life is stirring everywhere, 
Save within my lonely breast. 



There is silence : the dead leaves 
Fall and rustle and are still; 

Beats no flail upon the sheaves, 
Comes no murmur from the mill. 

April 9, 1874. 



VICTOR AND VANQUISHED. 

As one who long hath fled with panting breath 
Before his foe, bleeding and near to fall, 
I turn and set my back against the wall, 
And look thee in the face, triumphant 
Death. 

I call for aid, and no one answereth ; 

I am alone with thee, who conquerest all ; 
Yet me thy threatening form doth not ap- 
pall, 
For thou art but a phantom and a wraith. 

Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt, 
With armor shattered, and without a shield, 
I stand unmoved ; do with me what thou 
wilt ; 

I can resist no more, but will not yield. 
This is no tournament where cowards tilt ; 
The vanquished here is victor of the field. 

April 4, 1876. 

-7 



MEMORIES. 

Oft I remember those whom I have known 
In other days, to whom my heart was led 
As by a magnet, and who are not dead, 
But absent, and their memories overgrown 

With other thoughts and troubles of my own, 
As graves with grasses are, and at their head 
The stone with moss and lichens so o'er- 

spread, 
Nothing is legible but the name alone. 

And is it so with them? After long years, 
Do they remember me in the same way, 
And is the memory pleasant as to me? 

I fear to ask ; yet wherefore are my fears ? 
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and de- 
cay, 
And yet the root perennial may be. 

September 23, 1881. 






MY BOOKS. 

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight 

Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield, 
The sword two-handed and the shining 

shield 
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight, 

While secret longings for the lost delight 
Of tourney or adventure in the field 
Came over him, and tears but half concealed 
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white, 

So I behold these books upon their shelf, 
My ornaments and arms of other days ; 
Not wholly useless, though no longer used, 

For they remind me of my other self, 

Younger and stronger, and the pleasant 

ways 
In which I walked, now clouded and con- 
fused. 

December 27, 1881. 



L'EBTVOI. 



POSSIBILITIES. 

Wheee are the Poets, unto whom belong 

The Olympian heights ; whose singing shafts 
were sent 

Straight to the mark, and not from bows 
half bent, 

But with the utmost tension of the thong ? 
Where are the stately argosies of song, 

Whose rushing keels made music as they 
went 

Sailing in search of some new continent, 

With all sail set, and steady winds and 
strong ? 
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, un- 
taught 

In schools, some graduate of the field or 
street, 



88 IN THE HARBOR 

Who shall become a master of the art, 
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought, 
Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet 
For lands not yet laid down in any chart. 

January 17, 1882. 



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